ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PARENTS 
ASSOCIATION  of  the  SCHOOL  of  EDUCATION  on 
5  JUNE  1911  by  ANITA  McCORMICK  BLAINE 


This,  our  school,  had  its  original  and  only  true  foun- 
dation in  the  mind  and  heart — in  the  purpose,  of 
Col.  Francis  W.  Parker.  In  its  second  phase,  in  which  it 
was  intended  to  be  freed  of  all  trammels  for  its  work, 
it  was  founded  (at  the  first  instance  of  my  wish,  and 
Col.  Parker's  consent)  by  the  efforts  of  its  Trustees, 
Owen  F.  Aldis,  Henry  B.  Favill,  Cyrus  Bentley,  Stanley 
McCormick  and  myself;  and  of  Col.  Parker  and  of  his 
faculty. 

In  its  third  phase  it  had  its  foundation  in  a  great  con- 
course of  elements — the  appreciation  of  its  work  and  of 
its  principles  and  of  its  possibilities  by  President  Wil- 
liam E.  Harper ; — the  sympathetic  joining  with  it  of  the 
faculties  of  three  of  the  University's  schools  and  of  the 
University's  .Department  of  Education — and  the  consent 
to  join  the  University,  of  all  of  its  own  authorities— 
which  included  its  whole  faculty. 

To  present  to  you  all  of  the  ideals  which  determined 
this  broad  foundation — and  they  make  a  mass  which 
must  surely  help  to  move  on  this  old  world — is  more 
than  I  am  able  to  do. 

I  realize  that  in  asking  me  to  speak  to  you  on  this 
subject  you  have  had  in  mind  the  limitations  which  I 
have  in  dealing  with  it.  For  that  reason  I  am  not  stag- 
gered by  the  thought.  For  another  reason  I  am  not 
staggered  by  it: — As  I  have  known  this  work  in  educa- 
tion, its  aims  and  its  ideals  have  not  been  divergent.  I 
do  not  need  to  analyze  for  you  widely  separating  threads 
with  their  actions  and  interactions.  With  all  the  vary- 
ing ideas  and  viewpoints  of  such  a  great  concourse  of 
so  manv  active  and  independent  minds,  the  purposes  of 


this  work  have  been  in  one  great  stream — the  goals  have 
all  been  at  one  great  end.  So  that  if  I  lead  you  to  this 
stream,  even  though  it  be  down  one  small  rivulet,  it  is 
still  to  one  large  stream  I  bring  you.  For,  in  this 
current  of  educational  effort,  clashing  and  warring 
and  disputing  as  the  ideas  have  been — just  as  clash- 
ing and  warring  and  disputing  as  ideas  must 
be  that  are  vital  to  the  individual  and  to  the  world — 
they  have  been  below  that,  as  I  have  known  the  work, 
singularly  and  deeply  harmonious.  I  take  it  that 
currents  that  are  deep  are  swept  onwards  so  much  the 
more  irresistibly,  that  the  eddies  do  not  stay  the  prog- 
ress, nor  separate  nor  retard  the  flow.  And  so,  though 
I  bring  you  to  the  ideals  that  dominated  the  work  of 
the  school,  through  my  own  medium,  I  have  not  the  feel- 
ing that  this  is  out  of  harmony  with  the  greater  force 
you  find  there. 

However,  I  must  ask  you,  as  I  go  on,  to  bear  clearly 
in  mind  that  what  I  am  giving  you  is  my  own  stand- 
point— from  which  I  have  viewed  this  great  school  work. 

At  the  outset  of  taking  up  the  subject  you  have  given 
me,  it  came  to  me  to  try  wholly  to  depict  Col.  Parker's 
viewpoint  towards  his  school — and  then  perhaps  to  add, 
of  my  own,  views  about  the  work,  and  parts  of  the  work, 
that  I  should  particularly  want  to  emphasize. 

The  great  difficulty  about  this  process  is  that  when  I 
attempt  the  statement  of  Col.  Parker's  viewpoint  towards 
his  own  school,  I  am  so  entirely  inadequate  for  the  de- 
scription. Many  others  could  give  you  that  so  much  bet- 
ter than  I  could — notably  our  Miss  Cooke,  who  carries 
on  Col.  Parker's  work  on  the  North  Side — and  equally 
notably,  many  members  of  his  faculty  whom  you  have 
with  you. 


3 

I  had  the  thought  at  one  moment  of  asking  to  divide 
this  hour  and  to  persuade  Miss  Cooke  to  give  you  her 
interpretation  of  Col.  Parker's  work.  I  quickly  retreat- 
ed from  this  thought  for  the  reason  that  if  you  had  the 
chance  to  listen  to  Miss  Cooke  I  should  gain  no  hearing 
at  all — and  I  could  not  think  of  losing  this  rare  oppor- 
tunity for  an  audience. 

I  earnestly  entreat  you,  now  that  I  shall  have  had  my 
chance  of  taxing  you  to  my  satisfaction,  to  give  your- 
selves, the  pleasure,  if  you  can  persuade  her,  of  hearing 
the  statement  of  the  school  work  which  Miss  Cooke  gave 
to  the  Parker  School  this  spring.  We  felt  that  it  was 
as  vivid  and  comprehensive  a  statement  of  this  complex- 
subject  as  we  had  had. 

Leaving  you  in  anticipation  of  that  possibility  as  a 
reward  of  patience,  may  I  then  draw  you  on  with  me? 
and  let  fall  upon  your  head  the  retribution  of  your  own 
choice. 

The  composite  seeming  not  a  hopeful  attempt,  I  shall 
not  try  to  give  you  the  technical  description  of  Col.  Par- 
ker's school  work — nor  separate  myself  from  my  own 
view  of  it.  This  will  not  be  the  full  statement  of  the 
ideals  of  the  school  which  my  title  calls  for,  and  no  one 
statement  could  cover  those  in  full — no  one  viewpoint 
compass  them. 

But  I  will  ask  you,  then,  to  remember  that  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  from  my  statement  that  the  more  re- 
sponsible factors  in  the  school  work  would  be  repre- 
sented therein,  and  if  you  promise  to  keep  this  in  mind, 
I  shall  go  freely  forward  and  give  you  what  seems  the 
only  thing  to  attempt —the  ideals  of  our  school  as  seen 
in  the  foundation  of  it  by  one  factor  in  that  great  and 
comprehensive  process. 


One  other  preliminary  word  is  quite  necessary  to 
say : — That  I  shall  not  attempt  to  at  all  points  make  clear 
wherein  the  school  did  not  fulfill  its  whole  ideal  in  its 
performance. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  state  that  it  did  not  do  so.  To 
speak  of  its  ideals  is  to  indicate  that  it  reached  out  to- 
wards goals  beyond  its  grasp  which  it  had  not  yet  per- 
fectly attained.  What  you  ask  for  today  is  a  picture  of 
those  goals.  To  analyze  the  shortcomings  and  find  the 
reasons  and  cures  for  those,  is  the  process  of  school 
work.  This  I  am  not  attempting  to  describe  in  this  mo- 
ment. I  am  but  trying  to  pass  on  to  you — and  I  fear  it 
will  be  but  faintly — that  alluring  picture  which  I  got 
glimpse  of  when  I  first  entered  Col.  Parker's  school — 
the  ideal  growing  ground  for  a  child — a  picture  that 
itself  has  grown  and  grown  as  one  gazes  on  it  and 
dwells  in  it. 

The  ideals — the  aims  of  its  existence — of  this  school 
which  was  Col.  Parker's — are  now  yours — and  ours  by 
affection  and  courtesy!  Let  me  once  and  for  all  en- 
treat you  whenever  you  approach  this  vital  subject  of 
the  work  of  a  school  that  is  trying  to  set  a  standard  for 
children,  that  you  take  great  care  to  make  the  distinc- 
tions which  give  the  essential  idea.  This  move  in  ed- 
ucation in  general  has  been  open,  naturally  and  rightly, 
to  a  vast  amount  of  criticism.  We  cannot  approach  the 
subject  without  meeting  it  on  every  hand.  This  school 
has  challenged  attention  by  its  fundamental  importance, 
and  also  more  or  less  by  its  power  to  attract  attention 
by  its  results.  Its  real  upholders  have  always  welcomed 
criticism — courted  suggestion  as  a  great  avenue  of 
help — and  ignored  the  carping  criticism  which  was  man- 
ifestly trying  to  pick  flaws  for  the  pleasure  of  that  in- 


teresting  ocupation,  for  which  new  territory  always 
offers  so  many  easy  and  attractive  opportunities.  But 
there  is  a  vast  ainount  of  keenly  interested  criticism 
which  shoots  wide  of  the  mark,  because  it  proceeds  from 
a  lack  of  understanding  of  the  real  ideas  contained  in 
the  terms  used.  I  have  often  been  engulfed  by  the 
hopeless  and  helpless  feeling  that  that  situation  leaves 
one  in,  when  it  is  realized  that  a  word  will  not  straighten 
the  issue,  and  that  the  critic  will  not  give  more  than 
passing  attention  to  the  matter.  The  confusion  is  often 
deeper  and  more  important,  however,  than  the  momen- 
tary missing  of  the  point  by  casual  beholders.  For  real 
criticism  is  the  meat  and  drink  of  constructive  work  in 
education,  or  in  anything  else,  and  we  can  ill  afford  to 
have  it  mixed  with  the  poison  of  a  misunderstanding  of 
the  real  idea. 

It  is  the  frequent  vision  of  this  confusion  which  leads 
me  to  beg  you  to  make  the  correct  distinctions  in  deal- 
ing with  this  subject. 

The  subject  of  a  serious  effort  to  advance  education  a 
point  further  in  its  evolution,  is  worth  clear  thinking 
on  it. 

Loose  thought  does  more  to  becloud  issues  than  we 
are  aware  of.  So  much  so-called  thought  is  but  a  game 
of  follow-the-leader  that  it  becomes  an  important  mat- 
ter for  the  leaders  not  to  perpetuate  side-tracking  lines 
of  mistake.  This,  no  doubt,  is  an  unnecessary  reflection 
or  suggestion  to  make  within  a  University  atmosphere. 
I  must  be  pardoned  for  making  it,  on  the  score  of  com- 
ing into  the  sacred  precincts  from  the  philistine,  ple- 
beian sections  of  the  city — of  the  country — of  the  world. 
But  even  in  coming  out  of  the  outer  darkness — or  be- 
cause of  that — it  seems  worth  while  to  point  out  the 


pitfalls  that  may  catch  the  steps  of  the  unwary,  who 
may  stray  from  the  pure  light  of  University  thought. 

Such  familiar  battle  grounds  for  mastery  of  the  cor- 
rect interpretation  come  at  once  to  mind — as  the  com- 
mon error  of  making  the  poor,  jaded  word  discipline 
do  service  for  the  birch  rod,  and  the  power  of  the  will, 
alike,  and  tearing  it  limb  from  limb  in  separating  these 
two  impersonations  of  it.  The  result  in  the  casual  be- 
holder is,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  the  retention  of  the 
more  dramatic  fact  of  the  relegation  of  the  birch  rod 
to  the  dust  heap — and  the  conclusion,  immediate  and 
final,  that  Discipline — all  Discipline — is  gone  bag  and 
baggage  to  the  same  quarter. 

An  equally  ready  to  hand  spot  of  confusion  is  the 
well  worn  topic  of  interest.  Because  interest  in  the 
mind  of  the  child  may  be  considered  a  sine  quo  non  of 
good  work,  therefore  your  non-distinction-drawer,  whip- 
ping poor  interest  around  the  stump  of  all  of  his  own 
preconceived  ideas,  pictures  your  education  as  tied  to 
the  apron  string  of  every  passing  whim  of  each  sep- 
arate and  individual  child  of  every  group — a  confusing 
enough  result,  surely,  in  the  mind  of  the  believer,  if  not 
in  the  actual  fact. 

These  errors  of  the  common  herd  are,  as  we  have 
said,  irrelevant  in  this  presence. 

But  they  serve  to  illustrate  common  mistakes  which 
can  be  corrected  only  by  the  uncommon  clearness  of 
the  thinking  few — and  therefore  they  may  be  alluded 
to  pleadingly  by  a  commoner. 

May  I  then  proceed  to  draw  one  distinction  which  I 
think  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  matter? 

The  first  aim  of  this  school,  as  I  have  seen  it,  was 


to  improve  the  conditions  of  school  life  for  all  children 
—to  improve  them  by  its  immediate  discoveries  for  its 
own  pupils  and,  by  that  demonstration,  and  its  influ- 
ence, for  all  the  children  in  the  world — if  possible  to 
reach  so  far. 

This  does  not  fall  within  the  territory  of  just  trying 
to  do  what  is  and  has  been  done  in  a  yet  better  or  more 
perfect  way.  It  has  in  it  a  very  different  meaning,  viz. : 
to  change  more  or  less  radically,  as  the  ease  may  be,  the 
existing  conditions  in  schools  for  children;  and  it  in- 
volves clearly  a  choice.  If  the  former  idea  is  quite  right, 
then  the  other  is  not  to  be  followed.  If  the  later  idea 
is  right,  then  the  former  idea  is  in  some  sense  wrong. 
This  division  or  choice  is  not  always  a  clear  one  by 
any  means.  Known  schools  would  not  necessarily  fall 
into  the  one  category  or  the  other.  But  yet  in  what  Col. 
Parker  set  forth  to  do  for  children  in  schools  is  involved 
in  an  essential  way  an  element  of  choice — an  element  of 
negativing  another  way  which  largely  obtained  and 
which  he  found  to  be  not  the  right  condition  for  chil- 
dren's education,  and  which  his  purpose  was  to  super- 
sede as  largely  as  possible. 

Thus,  in  the  aim  of  his  school  to  improve  the  condi- 
tions for  children,  is  contained  an  arraignment  of  a  for- 
mer, and  what  it  would  have  been  his  life  hope  to  call 
an  outgrown,  idea  in  the  education  of  children.  I  think 
any  understanding  of  the  ideas  of  this  school  must  pro 
ceed  from  a  realization  of  that  former  state  and  those 
elements  in  it  which  Col.  Parker's  work  set  forth  to 
eradicate — it  must  proceed  from  an  arraignment! 

Holding  the  former  way,  then,  at  the  bar,  we  must 
make  counts  against  it — in  all  solemnity. 

It  received  the  pupil  from  the  hands  of  its  parents, 


8 

but  it  did  not  take  all  of  him.  At  the  gate  of  the  school 
he,  like  the  Gaul  he  was  to  learn  so  much  about,  was 
divided  into  three  parts.  His  parents  were  told  to  rp 
tain  two  of  them,  keeping  entire  charge  of  his  charac- 
ter formation  and  his  physical  well  being.  The  school 
assumed  the  task  of  developing  his  head  machine. 

Due  notice  being  thus  given  of  what  the  school  at 
tempted  and  what  it  did  not  attempt  to  do,  it  could  with 
perfect  good  faith  wash  its  hands  of  all  it  had  not  un- 
dertaken— and  this  it  proceeded  to  do.  It  held  its  pu- 
pils then  as  little  integers  for  head  work,  and  its  edu- 
cational work  went  on,  on  that  theory.  It  became  then 
an  irrelevant — almost  an  impertinent — question  if  one 
ventured  to  inquire,  whether  such  and  such  a  part  of 
school  work  was  a  salutary  influence  on  the  pupil's  char- 
acter— or  whether  the  school  life  was  conducive  to  the 
pupil's  health. 

Those  were  questions  for  the  home  to  deal  with 
wholly!  Any  particularly  benign  teacher  might  enter 
that  realm  with  her  advice.  But  it  was  by  no  possible 
construction  her  responsibility. 

It  is  strange  to  stop  to  consider,  in  this  conception 
of  the  school's  function  for  children,  what  a  large  pro- 
portion of  time  and  influence  the  school  was  willing  to 
assume  in  the  lives  of  children,  on  this  basis  of  partial 
responsibility. 

By  this  division  the  school  took  no  particular  account 
of  the  pupil's  physical  development,  and  the  pupil  had 
no  particular  way  through  the  school  of  acquiring  a 
greater  store  of  strength  than  nature  had  started  him 
with.  The  quota  of  gymnastics  in  schools  in  general 
would  hardly  make  an  appreciable  limit  to  this  state- 
ment. It  is  quite  fair  to  say  that  it  was  not  considered 


9 

the  school's  especial  business  to  conserve  or  increase 
the  pupil's  store  of  physical  vigor. 

Dealing,  as  the  school  set  forth  to  do,  then,  with  the 
head  work  of  the  child,  it  would  be  fair  to  hope  that 
that  would  be  done  with  enlightenment.  But  it  is  more 
in  keeping  to  expect  that  a  narrow  and  partial  concep- 
tion of  the  whole  realm  of  school  work  would  be  followed 
by  a  limited  conception  in  the  field  which  it  did  assume. 
And  this  we  find  to  be  the  case. 

In  the  ancien  regime  the  pedagogic  process  must  be 
declared  to  be  faulty. 

It  consisted  mainly  in  the  stuffing  of  the  pupil's  mind 
with  the  thoughts  and  conclusions  of  others,  and  the 
requirement  from  him  of  the  repetition  of  these — too 
often  word  for  word — as  his  contribution. 

It  was  not  only  the  stuffing  of  his  mind  with  foreign 
material,  but  in  such  unrelated  nuggets  as  to  make  no 
mass  which  he  could  by  any  process  of  his  own  assim- 
ilate. 

The  result  of  this  pedagogic  conception  was,  no  think- 
ing process  on  the  part  of  the  pupil — and  no  possession 
by  him  of  such  material  as  he  had  succeeded  in  uttering 
by  rote. 

The  standards  set  up  by  the  schools  of  yesterday  were 
in  every  case  the  standards  set  by  others.  They  were 
labeled  by  names  made  sacred  by  an  awe,  which  severed 
them  from  all  real  connection  with  the  mind  of  the  pupil. 

With  the  leverage  of  distance  and  the  power  of  su- 
perstitious reverence,  the  hold  they  gained  over  the  pu- 
pil was  absolute — so  that  it  would  never  occur  to  a  pupil 
to  have  any  confidence  in  any  departure  whatever  of 
his  own.  These  standards  became  an  absolute  measure 


10 

of  excellence — not  from  intrinsic  appreciation,  but  from 
artificial  stamp  and  acceptance.  The  result  was  a  com- 
plete stoppage  of  any  originality  and  a  prime  emphasis 
on  imitation. 

Discipline  in  the  olden  time  was  a  method  invented 
for  dealing  with  inevitably  refractory  human  nature — 
a  means  of  catching  the  refraction  in  the  shoot,  and 
bringing  it  into  line  for  the  easement  of  trouble  for  the 
population  in  general,  and  for  individual  teachers  in 
particular.  It  was  a  method  applied  on  the  outside — 
prickers  of  one  sort  or  another,  which  the  refractory  one 
would  come  up  against  and  wish  for  his  own  comfort  in 
the  end  to  steer  clear  of — a  process  convenient  enough 
for  an  ease-loving  and  thought-shirking  adulthood,  but 
not  producing  in  the  pupil  any  real  control  whatsoever. 

From  the  foregoing  elements,  it  is  not  a  surprise  to 
reach  the  predicament  the  old  education  found  itself  in. 
With  no  physical  joy  to  expect,  no  work  of  one's  own, 
but  only  plodding  through  the  repetition  of  the  work 
of  others,  no  free  play  to  find  one's  own  metier,  noth- 
ing wanted  but  strict  adherence  to  a  stamped  pattern; — 
with  spikes  of  tongues  and  glances,  reprimands  and 
marks  (meaning  other  reprimands)  on  every  side  to  pre- 
vent any  deviation  from  the  lines  as  laid  down,  an  in- 
centive for  such  work  was  needed — and  needed  badly. 

And.  alas,  the  school — which  should  flash  the  beacon 
light  of  high  motive  from  hilltop  to  hilltop  for  human- 
ity— fell  into  the  device,  common  to  all  authorities  need- 
ing to  hold  their  populace  within  their  power, — resorted 
to  the  appeal  to  the  lower  elements  of  human  nature — 
the  fear  of  punishment  and  the  hope  of  gain — the  appeal 
to  the  selfish  desire  to  escape  censure,  and  to  excel 
above  others. 


11 

It  does  not  follow  from  a  clear  seeing  of  these  ele- 
ments in  the  old  education,  that  all  school-rooms  or  all 
schools  contained  them. 

Minds  in  all  ages  have  done  their  part  within  sys- 
tems on  plans  wholly  of  their  own  inspiration — minds 
have  found  themselves,  in  spite  of  all  barriers  forcing 
the  contrary. 

Schools  have  always  been  full  of  the  surprises  of 
minds  corning  upon  revivifying  connections  of  ideas — 
on  their  own  unbounded  uprising  personality — on  one 
and  another  teacher,  who  sees  and  inspires — and  lives 
have  been  built  on  the  foundations  laid  by  such  chance 
teachers. 

But  that  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  negative  the  state- 
ment that,  in  the  ordinary  course  and  by  the  accepted 
plan,  at  the  last  end  of  the  old  education,  all  was  but 
left  to  be  overcome.  The  end  was  but  to  begin,  and  per- 
haps the  best  result  was  the  common  cry  that  nothing 
was  remembered. 

In  the  realm  of  the  physical,  it  was  to  put  an  adult 
mind  on  the  subject  and  get  out  of  the  circumstances 
what  could  be  rescued — and  the  effort  probably  too  late 
at  that. 

If  to  think  was.  needed,  it  was  to  begin  by  getting  out 
of  and  forgetting  well-worn  ruts. 

If  a  personality  demanded  recognition,  it  was  at  the 
cost  of  eradicating  the  almost  ineradicable  stamp.  If 
control  was  to  be  reached,  it  was  needed  to  begin  all 
over  again  in  the  school  of  experience. 

If  co-operation  could  hold  sway  (instead  of  fierce 
rivalry  and  competition),  it  was  only  by  uprooting  that 


12 

sturdy  plant  of  selfishness,  developed  by  careful  culti- 
vation through  all  the  period  of  youth. 

We  are  used  to  crying  out  against  human  nature  and 
railing  against  our  civilization.  I  wonder  if  it  often 
enough  occurs  to  us  that  our  civilization  is  made  by  the 
people  of  it — and  that  we  are  making  in  turn  the  civiliza- 
tion of  tomorrow. 

The  minds  that  must  mount,  will.  How  many  more 
might  soar  if  we  gave  them  the  chance!  How  many 
thousands  and  millions  may  be  losing  their  lights,  in  the 
treadmill  of  educational  process! 

It  is  no  doubt  divinely  true  that  we  must  be  born 
again — but  is  it  divinely  necessary  that  our  educational 
process  should  leave  that  so  wholly  outside  of  its  doors? 
Might  not  that  be  a  gradual  rebirth  in  which  our  edu- 
cation should  play  the  leading  part? 

It  is  a  thankless  task  to  arraign  with  no  outlook  of 
possibility  and  hope. 

We  are  never  driven  to  this  necessity  in  scoring  ways 
past  for  children — for  there  are  always  ways  to  come. 
For  them,  ever  and  anon,  teachers  arise — prophets — to 
hold  aloft  torches  to  light  new  paths,  and  while  we  spur 
our  search  by  glancing  at  the  steps  we  wish  to  leave, 
we  may  concentrate  our  efforts  more  on  that  better  way 
of  discerning  the  footsteps  traced  ahead  and,  by  the 
flicker  of  the  light  in  advance,  find  which  steps  are  the 
ones  to  follow  and  which  to  improve. 

Col.  Parker  was  one  such  prophet. 

He  founded  our  school  in  the  spirit  of  a  prophet  for 
the  purpose  of  seeking  and  finding  light  to  shed  on  the 
path  of  mankind. 

His  school  was  designed  to  touch  the  lives  of  as  many 


13 

children  as  it  could  reach,  with  its  magic  wand;  bnt 
more  than  that,  to  be  a  school  of  the  prophets,  where 
new  light  should  ever  be  sought  and  found — tested  and 
disseminated — by  new  minds  marching  on  and  on — drawn 
by  the  irresistible  call  of  the  children — giving  new  and 
new  waves  of  light,  in  devotion  to  them. 

Tt  was  in  this  part  of  the  picture  of  the  future  that 
Col.  Parker  chiefly  exulted  when  he  came  with  his  school 
within  this  University — the  vision  of  the  stream  of  young 
things  setting  forth  for  their  life  work,  catching  sight 
of  the  teacher's  vision,  coming  within  these  gates,  and 
his  being  able  to  add  of  his  store  to  the  storehouse  of 
the  University,  for  their  preparation  for  a  high  mission. 

Children  were  a  mission  to  Col.  Parker.  To  teach 
them,  really,  as  they  might  be  taught,  he  held  out  to  his 
students  as  the  highest  mission  on  this  earth.  He  could 
not  touch  the  question  of  teaching  in  any  other  spirit. 

Children  were  received  from  their  parents  in  his 
school  as  a  sacred  trust.  There  was  no  dividing  of  ter- 
ritory here — no  separating  of  functions  which  left  the 
real  child  falling  between  two.  The  child  was  in  himself 
a  trinity — yes,  physical,  intellectual,  spiritual — but  one 
godhead. 

There  was  no  agreement  for  division  of  duties.  "When 
the  child  was  the  school's,  he  was  one  whole  splendid 
opportunity  and  responsibility.  It  was  not  that  the 
school  would  do  all  for  him — but  that  what  it  did  do 
it  would  do  wholly  for  all  of  him — and  if  it  did  not  thus 
help  the  home  to  do  the  same,  in  its  still  higher  ground, 
it  failed. 

The  child  was  considered  first  as  a  physical  being.  It 
was  realized  that  his  whole  life  up  to  the  adult  point  is 
based  on  growth. 


14 

It  is  the  first  necessity  to  rate  power  from  the  physical 
standpoint.  How  unscientific  we  are — how  dull!  We 
take  growing  things  whose  chief  element  is  growth — no 
two  of  whom  grow  precisely  alike — each  one  being  a  law 
unto  himself — yet  we  rate  and  grade  them  for  work  by 
arbitrary  years,  and  erect  standards  for  each  year  by 
which  they  must  toe  the  mark.  Then  we  give  them  the 
totally  false  feeling  that  at  such  and  such  moments,  such 
and  such  things,  arbitrarily  decided,  must  be  accom- 
plished, and  we  call  them  forward  or  backward  as  they 
go  beyond  or  behind  these  nicely  adjusted  facts  of  our 
own  making,  and — by  so  doing — cut  away  all  chance  of  a 
right  adjustment  by  hopelessly  twisting  their  own  ideas 
of  themselves. 

The  school  must  rate  the  children's  work  as  it  would 
fit  their  clothes,  to  their  physical  proportions — and  then, 
having  the  right  adjustment,  build  in  all  ways  to  con- 
serve and  increase  their  physical  store — taking  account 
at  all  points  of  their  need  for  physical  overflow  and  a 
chance  for  physical  exuberance.  Gymnastics  and  danc- 
ing and  physical  games,  for  development  in  different 
kinds,  all  made  part  of  the  school  day. 

Free  periods,  even  for  a  few  moments  between  classes, 
for  a  run,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  brought  about. 

One  of  the  dreams  of  the  second  foundation  of  the 
school  was  a  great  playground  where  perhaps  all  of  the 
second  half  of  the  school  day  could  be  spent  out  of  doors 
in  work  and  play. 

I  am  sure  that  it  is  a  serious  and  important  thing  for 
our  country,  with  our  more  and  more  rushing  life  and 
our  concentration  in  cities,  that  the  schools  should  take 
big  hold  of  the  physical  side  of  children's  lives  and  build 


15 

for  the  future  a  sturdier  race  than  we  can  say  we  are 
today. 

In  the  pedagogic  field,  how  shall  we  describe  Col.  Par- 
ker in  his  school?  The  thought  of  it  reminds  me  of  a  new 
elemental  thing  in  its  beginnings;  and  his  exuberant 
joy,  in  the  freedom  and  courage  of  his  experiments, 
makes  me  think  of  the  god  Pan  with  his  reeds — finding 
every  day  new  and  diviner  sounds  and  giving  them  forth 
to  the  listening,  waiting  earth. 

He  set  forth  on  his  quest  to  overturn  school  methods. 
He  had  no  pattern  to  move  by.  He  studied  under  the 
leaders  of  thought  in  Germany  in  his  studying  days— 
but  that  only  furnished  him  with  food  for  thought,  not 
with  a  plan.  Where  was  the  school  in  this  country  thaf 
was  making  departures'? 

In  our  most  vital  spots,  as  of  our  children,  we  are 
most  conservative,  perhaps  to  their  detriment. 

Col.  Parker  truly  set  forth  alone.  Your  own  John 
Dewey — and  his — came  next  in  time,  came  equal  in  cour- 
age and  initiative,  and  alongside  in  plan. 

Col.  Parker  broke  into  unploughed  territory  and 
verily  broke  the  ground.  He  discarded  all  precedents. 
His  school  practice  was  determined  by  two  factors: 

1st.     The  prime  fundamental  principles  he  clung 
to  for  children. 

2nd.     These,  guided,  in  their  application,  by  his 
own  fine  intuitive  sense  for  children. 

Col.  Parker's  principles  for  teaching  were  few  and 
clear — as  I  understand  them. 

He  held  that  the  child  is  the  unit,  for  teaching — not 
society.  He  aimed  for  the  development  of  the  individual 
to  all  of  his  highest  powers,  to  serve  and  to  make  so- 


16 

ciety,  not  the  training  of  individuals  necessarily  to  fit 
society — the  finished  product  of  today. 

He  held  that  the  child 's  mind  is  as  a  plant  to  let  grow 
— not  as  a  box  to  fill. 

He  held  that  thinking  is  the  growth  process,  and  de- 
veloped thinking  the  result  to  attain — that  there  is  no 
learning  without  thinking — and  that,  therefore,  all  teach- 
ing is  but  to  put  the  mind  in  contact — real  contact— 
with  a  subject  in  order  to  let  the  mind  act.  He  held  that 
a  recitation  without  thought  on  the  part  of  the  child  was 
no  recitation. 

He  held  that  activity  was  a  necessary  condition  of 
thinking  and  also  a  necessary  product  of  thinking— 
therefore  activity  must  be  present  in  the  child's  attitude 
towards  his  work — and  also  as  an  outcome  of  his  work, 
in  expression  of  some  kind. 

He  held  that  freedom  is  a  necessary  condition  of 
activity,  and  therefore  trammels  must  be  taken  away. 

He  held  that  interest  is  a  concomitant  of  activity  of 
thinking,  in  freedom,  and  therefore  a  test  to  apply  to 
the  whole.  If  real  interest  in  the  work  was  lacking, 
something  was  wrong — and  then  his  way  would  be,  not 
to  sugar-coat,  to  tickle  the  palate,  but  to  diagnose. 

He  held  that  to  enable  the  mind  to  grow  by  thinking, 
it  must  have  intellectual  food ;  that  this  must  be  fitted  in 
kind  and  variety  to  the  child's  place  in  his  intellectual 
development,  and  chosen  with  a  view  to  growth — not  to 
filling. 

The  function  of  the  teacher  was  to  lead  to  the  pas- 
tures green  and  the  still  waters — to  spread  the  table- 
to  furnish  the  opportunity  and  let  the  child  feed  and 
grow. 


17 

He  held  that  the  whole  round  world  belonged  to  every 
child,  and  that  to  bring  that  circle  aright  to  the  child 
was  the  great  realm  of  the  teacher — not  in  unrelated, 
incoherent  masses  could  it  break  on  the  child,  without 
overwhelming  and  confusing  him — but  in  correlated  con- 
tacts, with  man  and  nature,  in  ever  enlarging  circles, 
could  he  at  last  possess  the  whole  earth. 

He  held  that  all  of  the  child's  powers  should  be  used 
towards  the  gradual  but  complete  possession  of  nature 
—including  man  in  that  category — and  to  this  end,  that 
the  acquiring  of  all  necessary  intellectual  tools  and  fa- 
cilities should  be  in  the  course  of  this  thought-building 
process,  in  order  to  prevent  waste  of  energy  and  time. 

Col.  Parker  would  not  have  given  up  one  of  his  intel- 
lectual dogmas  for  any  person — but  he  would  have  given 
them  all  up  for  a  child! 

The  second — but  truly  the  chief  and  most  final  and  de- 
termining factor  in  his  school  work — was  his  intuitive 
sense  .of  child  nature — what  it  wanted — what  it  needed — 
what  dwarfed  it  or  twisted  it — what  expanded  it; — and 
any  preconceived  ideas  that  did  not  measure,  in  practice, 
the  manifest  good  of  the  children,  would  not  have  been 
held  for  a  moment.  He  was  like  a  gardener  tending  be- 
loved plants  as  he  went  about  his  school — and  he  put  his 
finger  unerringly  on  the  needed  elements — a  little  more 
sunshine  here  or  shade  there — and  the  plants  throve  won- 
drously  and  grew  apace. 

What  did  this  sense  for  children  consist  of?  It  is 
difficult  to  say,  but  into  it  went  an  unbounded  belief  in 
them — a  sympathetic  understanding  of  them  and  joy  in 
them — a  love  of  them  which  included  them  all. 

In  teaching,  there  is  the  intellectual  element  and  there 


18 

is  the  spiritual — and  I  think  we  must  come  to  see  that 
the  spiritual  must  be  the  predominating  element  in  the 
end.  It  must  have  the  real  ascendancy — the  final  de- 
cisive voice — the  ultimate  authority.  This  is  most  im- 
portant nearest  to  the  beginnings  of  life,  where  the  foun- 
dations are  laid,  in  the  impressionable  years.  But  I 
wonder  if  the  age 'comes  at  all,  during  education,  when 
it  is  not  equally  true.  With  Col.  Parker  this  was  the 
guiding  star  of  his  whole  work. 

I  am  keenly  aware,  as  I  have  tried  to  speak  of  these 
elements  in  education,  that  I  have  not  stated  them  in 
technical  terms.  I  am  almost  as  keenly  aware  that  I 
have  no  great  wish  to  do  so. 

It  is  undoubtedly  necessary  and  serviceable,  when  one 
is  closely  analyzing  psychological  processes,  or  pulling 
one  nerve  filament  from  another,  to  distinguish  between 
them,  to  have  exact  technical  terms  for  the  true  under- 
standing of  the  matter. 

But  the  adoption  of  them,  without  that  close,  urgent 
need  of  their  use,  is  a  dangerous  and  hampering  thing. 
And  when  one  is  talking  about  the  teaching  of  children, 
there  are  broader  issues  involved  than  these  close  anal- 
yses, and  I  have  a  feeling  that  to  try  to  closely  analyze 
and  condense,  into  technical  statements,  matters  that  are 
too  big  and  broad  for  that  treatment,  is  to  arrive  at 
more  of  falsehood  than  of  truth. 

I  do  not  think  that  Col.  Parker  s.tated  well  his  prin- 
ciples and  beliefs  in  education.  He  always  said  that 
John  Dewey  spoke  for  him  better  than  he  could  s.peak 
for  himself. 

But  he  saw — and  one  difficulty  in  his  promulgating 
what  he  saw,  was  that  he  said  it  so  inadequately.  But 


19 

he  carried  out  his  views  for  the  children  in  a  marvelous 
fashion,  and  the  main  point  for  the  children  was  not  the 
phrasing  but  the  doing. 

Did  Col.  Parker  have  a  pride  in  the  intellectual  side 
of  his  school  work? 

There  is  hardly  a  point  in  the  world  where  that  arch 
enemy  of  the  best  and  highest  good  does  not  gain  some 
foothold.  I  do  not  know — I  could  not  say  he  had  none. 
It  might  be  that  his  intellectual  creed,  like  other  creeds, 
had  fences  built  around  some  of  its  tenets — holding  some 
regions  untouchable. 

But  if  this  were  so,  it  boots  not. 

If  so,  it  would  only  mean  that  what  he  held  for  chil- 
dren was  so  great,  that  it  was  too  great  for  his  own 
grasp.  For  the  deepest  fundamental  principles  of  Col. 
Parker's  school  were  on  such  untouchable  ground  that 
to  put  any  mere  intellectual  theories  into  the  same  cat- 
egory must  be  to  lower  them. 

It  may  be  that,  with  a  touch  of  pride,  Col.  Parker 
hedged  about  some  of  the  lesser  holdings  of  his  peda- 
gogic doctrine — and  if  so,  all  would  suffer  from  a  dis- 
turbed proportion — but  even  if  so,  we  cannot  let  that 
rob  us  of  the  greatness  of  his  greatest. 

The  great,  the  pre-eminent,  the  undying  part  of  Col. 
Parker's  move  in  education  was  to  free,  to  lift,  the 
soul  of  the  child — therefore  the  soul  of  humanity.  I  do 
not  want  to  use  that  term  in  such  a  way  that  it  could 
provoke  the  discussion  of  what  is  the  soul,  and  whether 
there  is  a  soul.  If  I  could  ask  you,  each  one,  to  supply 
your  own  term,  to  mean  the  highest  development  of  the 
inner  nature  of  man — that  is  what  I  would  like  to  do. 
I  use  soul  onlv  because  I  know  no  better  one. 


20 

The  great  move  in  education  that  he  made  was  to  put 
that  soul — that  highest  possible  character  development 
—as  the  one  standard,  the  one  aim,  the  one  goal,  of 
school  work — its  accomplishment  the  one  final'  test  of 
the  work.  He  put  his  school  at  the  disposal  of  that 
achievement.  All  that  would  further  it  might  stand — 
all  that  would  help  it  must  be  had,  if  possible — anything 
that  would  hinder  it  must  be  done  away  with. 

I  am  afraid  Col.  Parker  did  not  live  and  work  long 
enough  to  let  us  realize  what  that  truly  meant — the 
vital  difference  between  that  and  the  basis  that  most  of 
our  educational1  institutions  are  on — young  and  old  alike. 

They  are  doing  the  expected  thing,  the  accepted  work, 
and  are  doing,  in  addition,  as  much  as  they  can  towards 
improvement  of  the  ideas  in  education,  and  of  the  in- 
dividual pupils. 

Discussions  of  betterings  of  school  processes  for  chil- 
dren is  very  apt  to  bring  to  a  close  with,  "We  would  do 
so  and  so,  if  we  could". 

It  does  not  follow  that  we  should  all  be  pace-setters— 
we  may  not  have  the  conviction  or  the  power  for  that 
But  it  helps  all,  when  one  can  be  such.  It  is  worth  while 
to  see  what  such  a  one  is  really  doing.  Even  so  much, 
it  sometimes  seems,  it  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  full 
force  of. 

Col.  Parker  in  his  school  could  do  all  things  that  he 
was  convinced  were  for  the  good  of  the  children,  be- 
cause he  would.  And  it  was  really  doing — not  only  say- 
ing, or  writing  in  a  catalogue.  All  interests — all  au- 
thorities even — himself,  his  whole  school,  and  every- 
thing connected  with  it,  were  subjected  to  the  one  pur- 
pose to  find  the  best — the  very  best — thing  for  children — 


21 

and  no  other  purpose  was  admitted  within  the  walls — 
to  stay. 

And  of  the  best,  that  best  of  the  best — the  child's  soul 
— was  paramount.  Neither  angels  nor  principalities 
could  have  kept  in  that  school  a  measure  that  would 
injure  a  child's  soul,  so  far  as  its  head  could  know  it. 

Of  what  would  injure  a  child's  soul  he  took  all  coun- 
sel— of  his  faculty  primarily.  They,  being  his  chosen 
counselors  and  in  the  heart  of  the  machine,  their  advice 
was  weighty  with  him. 

(He  believed  in  the  initiative  in  school  management. 
I  am  not  sure  he  would  have  advocated  the  referendum, 
for  when  there  was  a  final  word  to  say  it  had  to  be  his. 
The  recall,  I  am  sure,  would  never  have  been  needed!) 

All  and  any  light  Gol.  Parker  courted  from  far  or 
near.  Any  who  could  contribute  thought  for  a  child  had 
a  hearing.  And  from  it  all,  and  the  depths  of  his  own 
convictions,  conclusions  were  reached — and  then  there 
was  never  a  question  about  action. 

Artificiality  of  every  sort  was  swept  away.  The  only 
standard  that  was  set  for  a  child  was  that  child's  best. 
The  world's  leaders  were  not  brought  to  him  as  arbiters, 
but  as  friends.  Each  child  was  made  a  king  in  his  own 
domain,  and  what  he  gave  of  that  princely  possession, 
was  a  gift  to  all. 

Discipline,  as  all  else,  was  evoked  from  within,  not 
laid  on  from  without — and  it  was  evoked  wholly  on  the 
basis  of  usefulness  to  the  community — the  real  basis. 

If  it  became  necessary  at  any  point  to  protect  the 
community  arbitrarily,  that  could  be  done.     It  is  amaz- 
ing how  seldom  it  was  needed.    With  all  the  forces  work 
ing  towards  self-control,  how   could   it   otherwise   than 


22 

come  about — rightly  and  completely — developing  a  true 
responsibility? 

The  finest  flower  of  Col.  Parker's  work  was  in  his  final 
appeal  to  the  child's  motive  and  incentive.  He  never 
allowed  an  appeal  to  be  made  directly  or  indirectly  to 
the  lower,  selfish  instinct  of  a  human  being  in  his  care— 
unless  it  might  be  in  a  humor  which  would  dispose  of  it, 
as  a  serious  consideration,  perhaps  more  effectually  than 
silence. 

Thus  all  competition — that  is,  of  the  get-ahead-of-the- 
other-fellow  sort — was  wiped  out. 

When  he  took  this  stand,  it  took  more  courage  than  it 
would  today — although  I  cannot  say  that  even  today  ed- 
ucation has  declared  competition  an  outworn  way. 

In  that  day,  to  abolish  rating  marks  among  pupils 
would  have  been  considered  a  step  towards  pandemo- 
nium. But  Col.  Parker  would  have  said  that  even  if 
so,  pandemonium  would  have  been  better  than  creating 
greed  for  glory,  and  at  another's  expense. 

But  of  course  it  did  not  produce  pandemonium — the 
courage  of  the  right  step  never  does.  It  produced  only 
added  fervor  in  the  pupil — greater  interest  in  the  real  is- 
sue of  one's  work,  when  the  false  issue  of  its  rating  by 
some  one  else,  in  comparison  with  some  one  else,  was 
eliminated.  And  competition  (except  in  the  field  of  the 
friendly  rivalry  of  play  where  the  gamboling  spirit 
makes  it  a  thing  of  joy!),  competition  took  its  proper 
place,  and  became  competition  with  oneself  to  do  ever 
better  and  better  work.  Vulgar,  sordid  competition  was 
wiped  out  of  existence  in  its  selfish  aspects — and  co-op- 
eration came  to  take  its  place. 

The  question  for  every  pupil  at  every  turn  was  not, 


23 

how  much  can  I  get  ahead  of  my  brother? — but,  how  much 
can  I  help  my  brother  to  do  also? 

If  Col.  Parker's  school  had  no  other  reason  for  exist- 
ence in  fact  or  in  memory,  this  alone  would  furnish  cause 
for  its  continuance — need  that  it  should  live  and  not 
die — that  in  one  spot,  in  the  world,  credits  for  self  were 
not  counted  up  for  miserly,  selfish  gain;  inches  or  dots 
or  lines  or  figures  were  not  closely  estimated  in  order 
to  rate  one  ahead  of  another. 

Competition  was  lost  sight  of  in  the  effort  to  help, 
and  to  do  better  oneself,  in  order  to  help  more — co- 
operation loomed  up  big  and  beautiful  for  a  cause — for 
work  and  the  joy  of  it — with  others  in  a  community 
spirit — where  contribution  was  so  diverse  and  so  over- 
flowing that  efforts  to  rate  it  became  an  absurdity,  ef- 
forts to  increase  it  a  joy. 

Can  the  ideals  of  our  school  be  told  in  words? 

They  flow  from  the  purpose  of  the  foundation.  They 
change  in  shape  and  color — in  detail — as  they  go  for- 
ward— as  a  river  finds  new  channels  from  its  very  force. 

They  are  to  build  on  the  old — losing  none  of  its 
strengths — but,  with  reverence,  to  add  forever  new  lights. 

They  are  to  make  that  great  art  of  teaching  come  to 
seem  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,  so  that  ideals  may 
become  realities  in  all  schools. 

They  are  to  take  the  child — all  children — and  build 
them  better  bodies — keener,  truer  minds — and  through 
all,  at  all  moments  and  in  all  experiences,  lead  them  to  be 
finer  spirits. 

And  the  saving  clause,  as  we  think  of  how  we  cannot, 
perhaps,  do  it  all  ourselves,  is  that,  as  we  drop  even  stray 


24 

gems  of  ideals,  the  children  pick  them  up  and  play  will 
them  and  weave  them  into  their  lives  to  do  it  all  better. 

I  feel  sure  that  when  the  millenium  comes,  it  will  come 
to  us  through  the  ideals  of  our  schools. 


CIS, 
65-3 


